


Lies We Try to Live By

by asparkofgoodness



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: After the Bastille, Aziraphale Loves Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale Tells Others Lies, But Can't Admit It Yet, Crowley Loves Aziraphale (Good Omens), Crowley Tells Himself Stories, Falling In Love, Forbidden Love, M/M, POV Crowley (Good Omens), Protective Crowley (Good Omens), Scene: Paris 1793 (Good Omens), Self-Denial, Storytelling, stories
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-07
Updated: 2021-02-18
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:01:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 11,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23054383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asparkofgoodness/pseuds/asparkofgoodness
Summary: With the art of stories, we can rewrite ourselves into the people we should have been or hoped to be.  We can protect and we can wound.  Our stories are powerful, so we must be careful with them.  Speak them out loud, and anyone could hear.  Tell them to ourselves too many times, and we may lose ourselves in them.The morning after The Bastille, Crowley comes to realize how their growing relationship is putting Aziraphale in danger.  This story follows them throughout the ages as they wrestle with love and the lies they try to live by to keep each other safe.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 22
Kudos: 71





	1. Chapter 1

_"I light the fuse and I watch it burn, and somewhere deep inside I know there's a lesson to be learned: it's not the crime but the way that we pay."_

_\- Isaac Gracie, "Silhouettes of You"_

We are all storytellers.We recount the day’s events for loved ones over dinner.We stretch the truth to calm a friend or soothe a child.We breathe life into the past with words until it’s almost tangible, almost present once again.“Tell me a story,” we beg, and then we listen as the world rearranges itself to fit a newly-spun narrative. 

With the art of stories, we can rewrite ourselves into the people we should have been or hoped to be.We can protect and we can wound.Our stories are powerful, so we must be careful with them.Speak them out loud, and anyone could hear.Tell them to ourselves too many times, and we may lose ourselves in them.

Here is one that’s true, one carefully memorized as it unfolded, as if he knew how often he would return to it.To be treasured, a story does not have to have a happy ending.

A crimson sun was rising over Paris and its blood-bathed streets.Its glowing fingers touched the tips of white curls, lending them the illusion of firelight as Aziraphale stood, framed by the window, with his back to the bed.The vision was a surprising epilogue to yesterday’s familiar arc.Strong shoulders rose and fell as he muttered to himself, started and re-started, no doubt twisting his ring in those worrying fingers.“Wasn’t my miracle, really,” Crowley’s sleep-muffled ears caught him saying.“Yes, I can see how it looks, but…”A sigh and a pause.His voice was higher-pitched than usual, fueled by nervous energy.“You see, I knew the demon Crowley was to blame for all of the recent… unpleasantness in France, and…”

Afraid and confused, he froze.From where he lay, stretched out under cheap sheets, Crowley saw no one else in the dingy room, but that didn’t mean that the angel was not speaking with someone from Head Office.Hell tended to overwrite newspaper headlines or interrupt street musicians when they needed to get in touch.Heaven, from what Aziraphale had shared, seemed to favor letters.Direct conversation from either side was rare and could mean trouble; he held still, waiting to hear a response.

“Of course, the best way to get his attention was to lay a trap… with myself as bait?No,” Aziraphale interrupted himself, returning to his normal tone of voice, “that doesn’t sound right.”Brows knit together in confusion, Crowley lifted his head, propping it up on his hand.“I could say I was attempting to infiltrate the revolutionaries, I suppose, and was outed before I found him.”

As Aziraphale tilted his head slightly, thinking, it hit Crowley just what he was witnessing: a rehearsal.Concern vanished from his face.Aziraphale was talking to himself.No danger, then.Confident they were alone, he relaxed, allowing his gaze to drift over Aziraphale’s frame, tracing routes his hands had taken the night before.Of course, Aziraphale had redressed, but it didn’t matter.After nearly a century of finding each other, of one following the other to rooms like this, of collapsing together despite best efforts to preserve the safety of distance, Crowley knew the curves and dips of his body far better than his own angled, bone-thin form.

“I’ll need a sufficient reason–”

“For ending up in chains, in need of demonic rescue?”Aziraphale turned with a start at the sound of his words.“You’ll need something better than crêpes, I can tell you that much.”

A small roll of blue-flecked eyes and a flicker of a smile.“I wouldn’t if any of them had ever given crêpes a try.Or wine.Or…”He cleared his throat and took a step closer to the bed.“I’m sorry if I woke you.You tend to sleep so soundly.”

“Surprised you’re still here,” and Crowley reached out and wrapped his thin fingers around Aziraphale’s wrist.The morning was a luxury he hadn’t ever been granted before.He felt the need to seize it, to hold on.

When this had first begun, Aziraphale had always left immediately after, ashamed or afraid or perhaps both.Recently, he had taken to waiting until Crowley drifted off, then disappearing before sunrise.Once, in Italy about fifty years back, Crowley had fought the weariness that tried to lull him to sleep, determined to keep Aziraphale around as long as possible. _Maybe if I don’t sleep,_ he had thought, _we can keep this after sunrise._ He had discovered that being awake for the thin excuses, the clipped goodbye, the sight of the door closing hit even harder than waking up to absence.

This morning, for some reason, Aziraphale had stayed; he let himself be tugged over to the bed, sitting down on the edge.Crowley sat up, noticing the way Aziraphale’s eyes dipped down to his bare chest and then back up to his face.Yesterday’s _“good lord”_ echoed in his mind, bringing color to his face. _May I?In the daylight?_ The room’s air hung warm and heavy between them.Dust drifted across orange sunbeams.He leaned forward, licked his lips and asked in a quiet, fragile tone, “Can you stay?For a bit?”

(When he visits this story, he often lingers here, inventing new and different endings.

“Yes,” Aziraphale breathes in one, a smile lighting up his face.“I was starting to think you’d never ask.”And he stays, and Crowley feels finally right and whole and there are no consequences, no fallout, just quiet mornings like this one beginning every day to come.

“I shouldn’t,” he admits in another, and then he pushes Crowley back onto the bed, strong hands gripping his shoulders, and he straddles his hips and runs fingers through his hair as he kisses him until Paris disappears, until he is his world, as Crowley knows he should be.)

Aziraphale winced, took a shaky breath, and whispered “better not.”He turned his head to avoid seeing the damage done by his words.“No telling when they’ll stop by asking for an explanation for yesterday.Can’t have them finding me here, or no amount of explaining will make any difference.”

“Oh, yeah, right, of course.”Words tumbled from Crowley’s lips, an attempt to distract them both from disappointment.“And I should probably poke around here a bit more, in case my lot ever ask questions about all this.”He paused, then added, “the revolution, I mean.Not… yeah.”Aziraphale had fixed his gaze on the window, as if this sunrise was infinitely more fascinating than the last thousand he had witnessed.Crowley watched the back of his neck and remembered pressing his lips to that spot of delicate skin just hours earlier.Neither made a move toward the door.

“You know, any demon would come running at the chance to see a captive angel.”Aziraphale turned to look again at him, surprised.“It’s not a bad plan.Either you’d die an obvious martyr, lowering public opinion of the guillotine, possibly keeping some humans alive a little longer, or you’d let me save you and pretend to owe me a favor.One you could use as leverage next time I needed thwarting.”

With a hum, Aziraphale considered this version of events.“I suppose that could work.”Yet another rescue.He flashed him a grateful smile, eyes darting over his lips and chest again.

“Do they come by often?Ask you to explain things?As long as I file my reports, my lot leaves me alone, for the most part.”He failed to mention how often he looked over his shoulder or how quickly he dodged Aziraphale’s “thank you”s or how many times he’d had to lie to cover up choices Hell would disapprove of.His constant state of caution had become second-nature long ago.

Sitting up even straighter, Aziraphale replied, “communication is important in order for them to fully understand the nature of my work here and how it serves the greater good.”A pre-packaged response, straight from the mouth of some other angel.Crowley made a face of disgust.“Well, I’d better get back to London.”

“No indication they’ve caught on to our… Arrangement, right?You’d tell me if there was?”

“Of course.”Crowley saw something – fear, maybe, or possibly guilt – flash in Aziraphale’s eyes.“No, I believe I’ve kept them successfully in the dark about it.”

Outside, people in the streets were shouting something; the deadly passions of the day were awakening.Though he knew better, knew he shouldn’t stay longer, Aziraphale reached out and smoothed a curl of red hair that had grown wild from sleep.This close, he could not help himself from stealing a kiss, cataloguing the taste of slumber and last night’s Cabaret that lingered on Crowley’s tongue.Crowley tipped slowly back, always tempting.They kissed lazily, without the desperate hunger of last night.In the morning sunlight, it was easy for Aziraphale to imagine they had the entire day to do just this and nothing more.So this was dawn with Crowley, which was to say, this was the dawn he’d read about in poetry, the dawn that held some rosy hope for days to come.

(He’d written this internal monologue for him, convinced that Aziraphale had to have known, then, what they were.The angel was an expert at building up walls – a guardian, still, of secrets and sin – but Crowley had seen him at his most vulnerable.He, too, recognized how perfectly they fit.How they had to have been created for each other.In those moments after, when the need subsided but they lingered, catching their breath, neither one ready to let go of the other, Crowley knew he saw love in his eyes.Aziraphale simply could not admit it yet.)

But Aziraphale knew he would have to answer for yesterday, first.He pulled himself away and stood, smoothing his clothes with shaky hands.Crowley stared at the space he had inhabited a moment earlier, dazed.“Do be careful,” Aziraphale muttered.With a nod, he left.

Crowley let himself fall back onto the bed, sighing at the cracked ceiling.Thousands of years, and yet he was still piecing Aziraphale together, adding details each time their paths crossed.He took his time, turning over each new fact in his mind as he replayed the past eighteen hours.Aziraphale likes his crêpes with cream and jam, and with cider that he’ll turn to wine when he’s finished with his meal.He’s forgotten most of his French.(Crowley remembers when he was nearly fluent.)He’s capable of drawing blood without pausing, without even seeming to notice.(The half-moon marks his fingernails had cut into Crowley’s hips still stung a little.Crowley liked that reminder.)His eyes, in the first light of morning, are the cold grey of a frozen lake.Once, just once (so far), he kissed Crowley after dawn.

And he practices for his conversations with Head Office.Plans his story out in advance, nitpicking details, finessing until he finds a finished product that would satisfy their expectations.This shouldn’t surprise Crowley: Aziraphale has always been fond of stories, and Heaven diligently keeps records and requests reports much lengthier than anything Crowley has ever had to write.It made sense.Aziraphale’s fear, the need for practice. 

_What else?_ Absentmindedly, Crowley ran his fingers over bruises that were blooming on his skin, the only evidence of Aziraphale’s nearness. _How closely are they watching him?And me?Do they know?_ No, Crowley knew they didn’t.The proof lay in white hair and white wings.But they had been careless, certainly, and, therefore, lucky. 

He had selfishly gotten what he had been wanting since Eden, again and again – asked some nights and said _yes_ others until the question didn’t need to be voiced any longer – and he had left Aziraphale to cover it all with rehearsed lies. _Unfair.And stupid_.He couldn’t let Aziraphale shoulder that burden any longer.If he had to give him up to keep him safe, Crowley would do it. 

_Easy,_ he thought as he buried his face in the pillow, noticed it smelled like Aziraphale’s skin, and did not pick up his head. _Easy,_ he told himself, and he could almost believe the narrative: how Aziraphale would see the sense in it, how quickly they could gain back the distance they used to keep between them, how easily he could let this go. 

Inside the rented room in Paris, as the city’s people tumbled out onto the streets for another day of bloodshed, Crowley tried halfheartedly to will fiction into reality.He would tell him, soon.In London, in a bookshop that was not quite a bookshop yet, among mostly-empty shelves, Aziraphale practiced until he could believe his own lies enough to veil the truth.They were each clinging to all that dawn’s greedy fingers had left behind: stories, and the hope that they could tell them well enough to make it through another day.


	2. Chapter 2

_"Give up living for the life that you paid for.Feelings unmutual have won.” - Isaac Gracie, "Silhouettes of You"_

A record keeper.A protector of the stories of humanity.Aziraphale quietly existed amongst the first sets of books to grace his shelves, tidying up, aligning spines in neat rows, memorizing these new additions to his collection, and feeling the weight of this new venture.A book shop, technically.Selling stories to eager patrons would be, of course, permissible.Even better, they would stay here, and he would guard them.He wanted to preserve the words of these long-dead humans – some he had known, and others he had known of – as an archive, of sorts, of the human experience.A tribute.Someone had to, after all.Humans could not be trusted to safeguard their own works: Alexandria had proven that a thousand times over.

He had only been open a few hours before people started coming in.Most browsed quickly and then left with a polite nod.A few seemed to want to touch everything, handling the books carelessly; he hovered near them, biting his tongue and wincing with each crack of a spine.One was his first sale: a young lady taking home a copy of a well-written but unoriginal romance novel.

After a week, the regular appearance of customers was starting to get on his nerves.He began to open later: occasionally on purpose, but, more often than not, accidentally.After all, it was so easy to lose track of time when surrounded by such gripping tales.Stories can transport you to other times, other places, nudging you forward into the unknown and tricking you into thinking the clock has stopped back home.

One rainy morning, as he was lost in a book, he heard the click of the door and footsteps on the floor.“So sorry,” he called out, “but we’re closed at the moment.I must have forgotten to lock up last night.You’re welcome to stop back again tomorrow.”He waited, listening to the patter of drops on the window, hoping to hear the patron head back out the door.

The footsteps paused.A floorboard creaked underfoot.Then, the steps continued to drift closer.A smooth, familiar voice asked “What sort of bookshop is closed at 10:00 on a Tuesday morning?”

Aziraphale quickly closed his book.“Crowley!What are you doing here?” 

As he stood, a small voice inside him pointed out that _here_ was _his bookshop_ , which he owned and lived above now, and that this was _not safe._ He set his book down on his desk and looked around.Fragments of light, broken by raindrops, danced across his bookshelves.They had always met on neutral territory – parks, museums, public houses, cafés, market squares, theaters, rented rooms – and his shop was most certainly not neutral.He could feel a knot forming in his stomach.

Crowley, fashion relatively unchanged since the last time Aziraphale had seen him, walked around the corner, noticed Aziraphale, and stopped.From behind his dark lenses, his eyes moved over Aziraphale’s face and down to his hands, clasped together in front of him.“Certainly not looking to buy a book, so you can relax.”

He tried to offer a casual smile.“Well, then, to what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?”

Crowley grimaced at his tone and waved a hand at him.“Just wanted to see the new shop, is all.Stop being so… Just sit, would you?”

Doing as he was asked, Aziraphale sat on the edge of his chair, hands in his lap.He studied the way Crowley hovered next to the sofa: eyes darting around the room, gloved hand rubbing the back of his neck.“You’re welcome to, as well,” he said politely, gesturing toward the sofa.

With a nod, Crowley sat, stretching out his long legs in front of him.“How’s business?Can’t be too good, not with the hours you’re keeping.Guess it doesn’t matter, really.Not like you need to make a profit.”Aziraphale noticed he was avoiding eye contact as he talked almost to himself.“I don’t quite see what your aim is with all this.It’s not like you can save souls by getting them to read ‘Gulliver’s Travels.’What’s the point?”His gaze settled on the street outside the window as he trailed off.The storm had picked up, and the rivers of water on the windowpanes sent shadows across Crowley’s face.

“The point,” Aziraphale began, not exactly sure where he was going, “is, well, to increase interaction with the locals, for a start.It’s easier to tell how they’re feeling and how I can help when I have a legitimate reason to be near them.And stories are very powerful, you know.They may not be able to save souls on their own, but they can help.”He paused, pursing his lips.“Is this why you’ve come?To inquire about my reasons for starting a business?”

Crowley shifted, opening his mouth a second before beginning to speak.“Uh, no.No.Just curious.Have to keep tabs on you, you know.If you’d discovered some way to convert via fiction, I’d have to figure out a way to fight it, of course.”

“If I had, I certainly wouldn’t share my methods with the enemy.”One corner of Crowley’s mouth quirked upward, and Aziraphale felt the tension in his chest loosen a little.A part of him still shouted that this was _not alright,_ but it was growing quieter, soothed by the familiarity of their back-and-forth.

“Ah,” said Crowley, leaning forward, elbows on his knees.“Not at first, sure.But demons are skilled at loosening tongues, and you get awfully chatty after a few glasses of a nice red.You’re easy, angel.I barely have to try.”

“I am not.”Aziraphale noticed Crowley was wearing the same waistcoat as the last time they had seen each other.He remembered the feel of the buttons in his eager fingers, Crowley’s breathy laugh at his struggle with them, the warm rush when Crowley snapped and their clothes vanished.He felt color coming into his cheeks and searched for a distraction.“Oh, would you like something to drink?I should have offered earlier.My apologies.I suppose it’s a tad early for wine.Tea?Cocoa?”

The shift in conversation seemed to jolt Crowley out of a daydream.He leaned slowly back against the sofa, smile fading.“Nah.Can’t stay long.I just – Look, I’ve been thinking.About Paris.”

Aziraphale met his eyes.He had been, too.Much more than he’d care to admit.Gabriel had come by for a visit a few days after and had left apparently convinced by Aziraphale’s version of events.When the anxiety had faded away, nostalgia had taken its place.The temptation to get lost in the memory.The desire for another night, another morning like that one, with golden light bathing red hair and pale skin in its warmth.The few stolen minutes after sunrise, bringing him dangerously close to admitting how he felt.How he knew they should be so much more than occasional, desperate collisions in the darkness.

Still, he knew better than to give voice to reckless fantasies.They could not be more.They could be threatened, tortured, destroyed just for being what they were.More?Impossible.Whatever Crowley said next, Aziraphale knew he could not indulge him. 

“What about Paris?” he asked, voice even and controlled.

“I think we need to be more careful.”

“More careful?” _You could start by not showing up unannounced where I live and work,_ he thought, but he bit his tongue.

Crowley turned his head, looking out the window again.“Seeing you– I hadn’t realized how they ask.How close they keep tabs on you.I don’t…”He cleared his throat.Aziraphale watched the long curve of his neck.“We’ve been taking risks we shouldn’t take.”

“Oh.”He was right, of course.“I see.”Aziraphale was not surprised by his assessment; he was surprised, however, that it was Crowley who was making it.Since their first wine-soaked, heady, clumsy kiss, Aziraphale knew they were making a mistake.Crowley was the enemy.He could excuse it away, reminding himself that Heaven had no specific rules for what he was allowed to do with his corporation.Humans called it “making love,” saw it all as gestures of affection, of passion, and angels are meant to love.Not that he _loved_ Crowley: it was just something they did, like trading jobs or feeding ducks or bickering about theater.But it was something they could just as easily not do, and it was putting them in danger.

Crowley had a fair point, then.He was voicing a fear that Aziraphale had felt for ages now.Aziraphale agreed with that point.And yet, he hadn’t said so. 

He hadn’t said anything, actually, for what must have been a rather long time.Outside, thunder rumbled ominously.“Well,” Crowley muttered, almost inaudible beneath the patter of the rain, “I should be on my way.”

Aziraphale blinked.“No, you don’t need to go.Stay for a cup of tea, or, or we could go for a stroll in the park.The rain on the pond would be–”

“Not a good idea,” Crowley said as he stood.Aziraphale rose from his chair, too, twisting his ring in his fingers.“Anyway, congratulations on the shop.May want to post your hours so people don’t get put off by the locked door.”Avoiding Aziraphale’s eyes, he turned to leave.

Aziraphale took a small step forward.“Oh, yes.Good suggestion.”

He remained standing long after he had heard the door open and shut, staring in the direction Crowley had gone.

He wished Crowley had given him time to think.To come up with a better answer than “I see.”But what would a better answer be?Crowley was right: they both knew it.Not much would change, really.They could still meet up from time to time.Trade stories.Argue over The Arrangement.Eat.Drink.And then the time would come, as it did today, when one would rise from the table, make a comment about how late it had gotten, and leave.They would each go to bed alone.Wake up alone.Much easier to rationalize, to excuse away, than spending the night with the enemy.

Aziraphale told himself this, but still, his chest ached as if he’d been hit.He could have sworn that, just before Crowley had turned to go, he had looked disappointed, like he was waiting for something that had not come.

“What did he want me to say?” he asked the empty, darkened room.“No, it’s perfectly safe for us to continue this… foolish indulgence that is in clear violation of everything we were put on Earth to do?”He was pacing back and forth in front of his chair.“Yes, let’s keep it up until we get caught and I Fall and you… Oh, he’d probably get a nice pat on the back for it, honestly.Although, I wonder if…”

And he stood still, and in front of him, he could picture golden eyes, heavy-lidded, looking at him as if he had curled the petals of the jasmine that bloomed around them and hung the stars and moon that lit the land. _That night in Prague._ He hadn’t meant for them to end up like that there, out in the open, but the night had been _“a perfect one for star-gazing”_ – Crowley’s words – and a nice man in the village had brewed the best ale he had ever tasted.

_And now he could see Crowley’s hair, which had been nicely braided, stretched in wild tangles across the grass.They lay on their sides, facing each other, breath returning to them.He heard himself dare to whisper “you are so lovely.”Crowley winced at his words, so he said, a little firmer, “you are.Trust me, dear.”In reply, Crowley gently ran a thumb over his lips, then kissed him._

In that moment, just before, as Crowley had studied his face, Aziraphale had recognized something in his eyes.“But demons can’t –”But Crowley had been an angel once.Inside him lived some goodness that he couldn’t hide from Aziraphale: the Fall had not destroyed it all.And Aziraphale knew what love looked like.

And then the door clicked open.

“Crowley?” he called, too high-pitched, too loud.His shoes thudded on the wood floor.

“Yeah.”Crowley was standing in the doorway, soaking wet, holding the door open as if he might decide to back out and close it again any second now.“I –“  


“You are right,” Aziraphale interrupted.“Continuing the way we have been is a very large risk.But there are instances, I do believe, when risks are worth taking.If the reward is worthwhile,” he added.“And if both parties consent.If you truly believe we need to go back to the way things were before, we will, but if you were only trying to protect me, you needn’t worry.I can handle myself.Cover our tracks.I have been for quite some time, you know.And I don’t mind, really.”

Crowley, eyebrow cocked, clothes dripping on the floor, stared at him.On the sidewalk outside, a couple passed by underneath a shared umbrella.

“You don’t mind?”Crowley stepped inside, accidentally slamming the door behind him and flinching at the sound.“You.It took me years, decades, to get you to do a simple temptation for me while you were already in the area.You get tetchy when I don’t pay for theater seats or talk too loud at a museum.But I come to you with a perfectly rational suggestion, for once, that we just try a little harder to not break the rules and get ourselves in massive trouble, and you say no?”

“Technically, we’re not breaking any rules.Not any of Heaven’s, at least.Does your side have rules about this?”

“What, rules about…”Crowley waved his hands back in forth between them.“About seducing an angel?”

It was Aziraphale’s turn to raise an eyebrow.“I don’t know if that’s quite an accurate description–“

“Then what is, Aziraphale?”He let out a frustrated sigh.“I don’t know if this is against the rules because I don’t know what _this_ is.We’ve barely even talked about it before now.I just know – I don’t want to put you in danger,” he admitted.

Aziraphale stepped close to him.“You don’t have to know.But it would be nice to work it out, wouldn’t it?And for that, we’ll need more time.I want that for us.And I’ll be careful in the meantime.”Though his hand was shaking slightly, he unclasped his fingers and took Crowley’s cold hand in his.“Don’t worry about me.”

Eyes wide behind his glasses, Crowley was stunned.He nodded slowly.“Okay.Yeah, okay.I, uh, that’s what I want, too.”

“Good.”With a relieved laugh, emboldened by Crowley’s response, Aziraphale closed the distance between them and kissed him gently.“Now come have a cup of tea with me and warm up,” he said against Crowley’s lips, and Crowley nodded.

And they would have spent the afternoon together, sitting in his bookshop.He could picture the way Crowley would have collapsed onto the sofa, legs swung over one of its arms, while Aziraphale put the kettle on.Aziraphale would have miracled him dry when he didn’t do it for himself.He would have sat up only halfway when he took the cup of tea from Aziraphale’s hand, and then he’d have struggled to sip the hot liquid without spilling.Eventually, he would’ve noticed Aziraphale had been re-reading Ovid and picked on him – _Have you even read anything from this century, angel?–_ and how they’d have bickered about the merits of the classics and living in the past.Day would have faded to night and Crowley would have still been there, on his couch, in his shop, and maybe he would still be there the next morning, too.

As he sat in his chair, watching the rain fall in jagged veins across the window, Aziraphale imagined this rewrite of the day.Imagined the sound of the shop door clicking back open.Imagined if Crowley had, in fact, returned to linger in the doorway.Imagined if he had been given the chance to say all the words that came too late to his tongue.Imagined if he had fought with his forgotten soldier’s courage for their love – because, oh, yes, it _was_ love.He was almost sure of it.And if he had found the words mere minutes earlier, if he hadn’t been such a coward, then he would not be alone now, as the sun set and darkness wrapped the bookshop in its heavy cloak.

_What kind of angel is scared of love?_ he wondered, and then he let himself slip back into fiction.Right now, he’d be picking up the teacups and trading them for wine glasses.Maybe sitting on the other end of the sofa, turning to speak and finding Crowley so close.He’d have lost his glasses hours ago, as he only did when they were alone and he felt safe, and his gaze would drop to Aziraphale’s lips and they would have a whole evening, maybe even the next morning, a future, to work out what they were to one another.Aziraphale suspected they both already knew.It was just a matter of admitting it: first, each to himself, and then, each to the other.

And if the day had ended as Aziraphale imagined, they would have had time for such words.Underneath the daydream, Aziraphale knew reality was much colder.Crowley had not returned, and so he had no choice but to continue as they had been, long ago, before he knew the touch of Crowley’s hands or the scent of his hair or the way his eyes changed when he let his guard down, when he looked at Aziraphale with love. 

_“You’ve a petal in your hair,” and he laughed, light, relaxed, as he pulled it from Aziraphale’s white curls._

_“Thank you,” Aziraphale answered softly.“You have a few of your own, you know.”He reached over, brushing Crowley’s flushed cheek, and wrapped a tangled strand of hair around his finger.“May I?”_

_Crowley closed his eyes and turned his face to the earth.“Nah,” he muttered into the grass.“Leave ‘em.”And the smile that dawned on Aziraphale’s face could have lit up the whole meadow._

Some love, Aziraphale knew, grew in the open, and some had to grow in secret, in the hidden hearts of men or the dusty pages of their books.Tonight, he would allow himself the comfort of yesterday’s stories and tomorrow’s fictions.Beyond that, he would have to turn the page and start anew.


	3. Chapter 3

_"You go upstairs, and I hang my head.Somebody said I let myself down as I crawled into bed.I wondered why the hell I'd ever paid for feelings unmutual.”_

_\- Isaac Gracie, "Silhouettes of You”_

“Seems almost unfair to me, come to think of it.An uneven trade, and clearly in your favor.I don’t know why you haven’t agreed to it already.”

“You know exactly why,” Aziraphale said after swallowing a bite of creme brûlée.

“Afraid I don’t.”

“You know very well that, while it may not be a major miracle, it is vitally important.It has to go well.”

Blinking slowly, Crowley took a sip of his wine.“And have I ever bungled a job for you, angel?”

“No,” admitted Aziraphale, “but I don’t think you have ever performed one with such high stakes before.”

Around them, the restaurant buzzed, alive with the jovial conversations of Saturday night patrons and the fast movements of busy, well-trained servers.Glasses clinked and dishes steamed and dining companions laughed and told stories.Crowley would have preferred somewhere more off the beaten path, somewhere much less upscale, but it hadn’t been his choice.Aziraphale’s letter had stunned him.The first communication in 60 years, and he suggests they meet for dinner?Crowley would have cooked the meal himself if it had meant a chance to see him, cooking lessons and all.

“You don’t trust me.”

“Of course not.You’re a demon.”He paused while the waiter refilled their glasses, avoiding Crowley’s stare.“It’s not that I think you couldn’t handle it, you know.It’s just… What if something goes wrong?”

“You’re making too big of a deal about it.Sounds easy to me.Carriage horses spook, start to bolt.A wave of my hand and oh, look, they’re calm again, and that little boy playing down the street remains very happily un-trampled.”

Frowning, Aziraphale picked at the last bite of dessert.“An important little boy, apparently.I don’t know all the details, but Gabriel made it clear that he must be saved.”Crowley watched him fret, all too familiar with the stages of convincing Aziraphale to do something.He would eventually do it, but they needed to do this dance first, Crowley nudging and Aziraphale dodging, pushing back.“And I know you and horses.”

“Don’t even have to get close to them, do I?I could do it from the pub down the road, four pints in.”

That got a reaction: Aziraphale’s jaw dropped and he scowled at him.“And that is exactly why–”

With a mischievous grin, Crowley held his hands up in front of him, the wine in his glass sloshing dangerously close to the top.“Just kidding.Come on.You’ve got your bookshop to look after, and we both know you don’t want to travel all that way to such an overcrowded, sweltering spot just for this one kid.Let me take care of it for you, since I have to be in the area anyway, and then you can handle that little temptation for me next month, and we’ll call it even.”

Why he was pushing so hard to do this miracle, he hardly knew.Maybe the wine had gone to his head.Maybe he was feeling, well, not _nice_ , but generous.Obliging.Maybe he didn’t want to have to go to the French countryside next month to tempt some local politician into cheating on his fiancée with his best friend.Given the state of things – the painfully quiet years that had passed since that day at the bookshop, the careful distance Crowley was keeping between them as he reclined in his chair, the way Aziraphale kept his eyes on his plate or his glass when he spoke – that kind of temptation was the last job Crowley wanted right now.

Or, maybe, he was pushing to do this because it meant they would need to keep in contact past tonight.There would be letters exchanged as the jobs grew closer.Perhaps even a visit, after, to hear how it had gone.A narrative with a clear plot arc to follow, instead of disconnected vignettes half-centuries apart.

Crowley had possessed such resolve as he walked into the restaurant: he was fine, things were normal, and normal would be safe and easy.That had all begun to crumble at the sight of him.Aziraphale had turned, sensing Crowley’s arrival, smiling warmly, and Crowley had thought _shit.I’m an idiot, and this will be the opposite of easy._

He realized Aziraphale had been talking, and tuned back in to hear “unless you give me more information about the temptation.You were incredibly vague, and you know it.”

Crowley frowned.He had been waiting for Aziraphale to call him on it.“Don’t know much, but it’s up your alley.Some Frenchman needs a little nudge to go after the love of his life.”At that final phrase, Crowley pulled a face like he had just tasted something bitter.

Aziraphale thanked the waiter as he took his plate, then returned his attention to Crowley.“What makes it one of yours instead of mine?”

“Well, he’s not exactly unattached.” 

“He’s _married_?”

“Nah.Not quite.Just engaged.”

“No.Absolutely not.”

Crowley winced.“Listen, he-”

“Out of the question.”Aziraphale set his napkin down on the table and pushed his chair back, preparing to leave.

“He doesn’t love her,” Crowley spit out, leaning forward.“And maybe this’ll make him call it off, you know.A small heartbreak now that saves them both the extended torture of a doomed marriage.”

Aziraphale sat still, considering; Crowley waited, holding his breath.And then, with a shake of his head, Aziraphale stood, looking across the restaurant toward the door as he spoke.“I will not be responsible for causing that kind of pain.No woman would agree to an engagement if she weren’t in love, these days, and he had no right to propose if he did not feel the same.”

“Report said that he-”

“Good night.”Before Crowley could protest further, he stormed out, waving a hand at the table behind him to conjure money for the bill.

Slumping into his chair, Crowley drained the rest of his wine in one long drink.“Right.That’s fine,” he muttered.“Do it myself.Help the French bastard’s dreams come true.Terrific.Maybe I’ll even stick around so they can tell me how happy I’ve made them.”He snapped his fingers and Aziraphale’s mostly-full glass slid across the table to his hand.

He knew it was best to give up, but as he finished Aziraphale’s wine, he wrestled with the unfinished tale inside him.If Aziraphale didn’t want to do the job, he had a right to that choice, but not without knowing the whole story.Crowley could feel the untold details burning on the tip of his tongue.They made all the difference, and Aziraphale would never know, would think Crowley tried to pass off a standard lust case on him. 

“Wouldn’t do that, for the bloody record,” he said rather loudly to the empty table.But what did Aziraphale know of this kind of love?This wasn’t angelic, giddy love, the kind that comes easy and warms your heart.The kind you’re allowed to speak of out in the open.No, this was the love you lock inside in the dark, half hoping it will whither and die out.The love you have to wrestle back into its cell every single time you see him, choking on confessions you’ll never dare to make.The love that spurs you to chase after him, anyway, despite all better judgement.Before he even consciously registered his decision, Crowley disappeared.

He reappeared in the park. Night was settling in.On the street to his right, a lamplighter was climbing his ladder.Crickets sang.Just down the path ahead, Aziraphale’s light coat stood out against the swaying shadows of the river.Without knowing what he’d say when he got there, Crowley set out toward him.

His steps echoed on the path.Startled, Aziraphale turned, and Crowley faltered.He had only seen that expression of weary resignation cloud his face a handful of times.As he had watched the flood rains consume every human not allowed on the Ark.As he had ministered to victims of the plague.As he had watched London burn.As if here, again, he longed to intervene but could only bear witness to another unimaginable part of the Divine Plan.One that caused pain. 

“I don’t think it wise to continue our conversation, Crowley.”

“You didn’t let me finish.”With renewed purpose, he continued walking.

“You won’t change my mind.”

“Don’t care, really, do I?Just think you should know–”

“I know all I need to know.I was foolish, thinking we could meet for a civil dinner.I should have known that you’d come with unsavory motives, that we could not simply go back-”

Coming to a stop before him, Crowley laughed sharply.“I had no motives, believe me, other than having dinner with you.Haven’t seen you in ages.Thought we could manage it.You’re the one who brought up work and that blessing you didn’t want to travel for, not me.”

“I was making conversation,” Aziraphale countered stubbornly, turning back to face the dark water.

“And I was offering an easy solution to your problem.After all this time, I thought you trusted me enough to know I wouldn’t make you compromise your blessed morality for me.”He noticed the way Aziraphale’s blue eyes darted over to meet his, and he realized what Aziraphale was thinking.He felt a pang of guilty pleasure that Aziraphale also unintentionally thought about their past.That he also couldn’t help but read between the lines of every paragraph.

“Stop asking me to trust you, Crowley.” Aziraphale watched the gently whirling water.His voice was cold and firm.“An angel and a demon are not meant to–“

“Fine,” Crowley spat into the darkness.“Yes, I get it.Loud and clear.”He turned to go, took two steps, and turned back.“No, you need to know the story.Trust me, don’t trust me, I don’t care, but I won’t have you making assumptions when you don’t know the facts.The Frenchman.He’s in love with his best friend, his _male_ best friend, and he’s trying to cover it with the betrothal, but he can’t go through with it.”The words tumbled from his wine-stained lips.“It’s one of mine because you know how the humans disapprove of that sort of thing these days, and technically he’d be sinning, but it’s probably the least demonic job I’ve ever been assigned and I thought you’d eat it up.I sure as Heaven don’t want to do it.Thought you would.”

A quiet moment passed.He knew, if he were sensible, he would leave now that he had said his piece, but he could not force himself to walk away.To an immortal being, sixty years should have felt like nothing, but he had missed him every day and now, here he was.Crowley did not want to be anywhere else.

Finally, Aziraphale spoke.“Why?”

With a roll of his eyes, Crowley snapped, “I just told you why.True love.Uniting soulmates.Easily angelic if you look at it in the right light.”

“No, that’s not what I meant.Why would you object to doing it?”

Crowley froze.For the second time that night, he felt he had stumbled across a line he should not have crossed and instantly wished he could back away.He clenched his hands into fists and contemplated which was worse: uttering any form of honest answer, which would certainly give him away, or disappearing to a distant star formation and staying there until Aziraphale forgot about him completely.

“Crowley…”

“You know why,” he forced out.

“I do not.”

“We’re not talking about this.”

“Is it not demonic enough for you?Would you rather keep them apart, despite them being, as you put it, ‘soulmates’?”

“Yep, that’s it,” he snarled."Can’t stand love.Demons are allergic to it, you know.I’d much rather see them die unfulfilled and alone than help them get together.You figured it out.”

Aziraphale slowly turned toward him, eyes bright as his mind worked, no doubt making dangerous connections Crowley wasn’t privy to yet.“You don’t mean that.”He stated it as fact.

“Whatever gave that away?”

“If that’s not it, then…”Aziraphale seemed to brace himself for something.“Is it painful for you, to see what you can’t have?Since demons are incapable of love?”

The air rushed out of Crowley’s lungs as if he had been sucker-punched.He opened his mouth, but found no easy lie waiting behind his lips.Desperate, he grabbed fistfuls of Aziraphale’s jacket and tugged him closer: to scream at him or kiss him, he didn’t know.But then he realized. _He really doesn’t think I’m even capable of loving him_ , and the death knell of it echoed in his head.After everything, Crowley assumed it had been sickeningly obvious, but if Aziraphale could ask that question, then he still had time to back away.To lie.To retreat and continue smothering this stubborn spark in secret until it finally died away.

Aziraphale seemed to be realizing something, too.His eyes darted back and forth, studying Crowley’s face and reading something there that seemed to excite him.A soft “ah” escaped him, the sound of someone confirming a theory.He kissed him, then, crushing Crowley’s lips in a desperate embrace fueled by years of separation. 

Crowley gave in instinctively, memory taking over as he slid hands up to the back of Aziraphale’s neck and let himself have this moment, knowing, as it unfolded, that it had to end soon, had to be left there in the darkness by the river. _He knows.He didn’t, but he does now, and he hasn’t run yet.Not good.Running is safer._ Aziraphale pressed closer, bringing their bodies together with a warm palm on the small of Crowley’s back.

Time passed.Eventually, Crowley pulled away, forcing himself to stop before the kiss turned into more.Aziraphale kept his eyes closed.Crowley could tell he was about to speak, so he beat him to it.“Don’t, angel.Nothing has changed.That was just a… slip-up.”

At that, pale blue eyes shot open.“Crowley, if you love–”

“Shut it.”He meant to lace his words with venom, but instead, they came out breathless, gutted.He wanted to collapse under the weight of it: the shame of being found out, the impossibility of it all.“I mean it.Unless you’re ready to fight.Rebel.Risk everything.Because they,” he look upward toward the night sky, “wouldn’t stand for it.Deep down, you know that.And we can’t go back to the way it was before.I can’t.”

Aziraphale pursed his lips and looked down at his feet.“Angels aren’t meant to… It would be–”

“I know,” Crowley admitted quietly.“I’m not asking.”He knew he could never encourage Aziraphale to take that leap, not when he could still vividly recall the feeling of falling, the acrid smell of feathers on fire.He harbored no lasting regrets, but he knew Aziraphale would.

“And if they knew, they’d come after you and–”

“Right.”The silent air hung, void of solution or comfort, between them.Crowley forced himself to survey Aziraphale’s face, to take in the pain etched into the corners of his mouth and eyes. _Remember,_ he thought. _Years from now, when you convince yourself he never cared, that you were just torturing yourself over nothing, remember this._ “Let’s just,” he shook his head, “forget.Okay?Good night.”With a sharp snap, he vanished.

Two years later, they would find themselves by water once again, this time standing side-by-side, carefully keeping space between them as Crowley passes Aziraphale a note.Crowley will claim it’s for insurance, for others.Aziraphale will remember the way he had uttered “forget” like a tortured man praying for respite, consider just how difficult it is to erase the the story of your past when it holds something irrecoverable and golden, and know that Crowley is lying.


	4. Chapter 4

_"I'm tired of living in the shadows, these paper walls I can't break through.I’m sick of standing by your window tracing silhouettes of you.”_

_\- Isaac Gracie, "Silhouettes of You”_

It is 1862, and the world is not safe for them. 

They stand at the water’s edge, enough distance in between that passersby may think they are strangers.

(Two years ago, Crowley had memorized Aziraphale’s expression as they stood at an impasse, intending to cling to it like a souvenir of an ancient place reduced to ruins, but then there was Marseille.A couple of pints and a few of the usual tricks and Crowley had the job almost done.The young sailor confessed his dread about his upcoming wedding as if they’d been friends for ages, and he’d already mentioned his _ami_ Alexandre eight times, each with increasing affection. _Too easy_ , he thought. _Be back in London by sunrise._

As the pub began to empty for the night, Crowley, who’d had a few himself, nudged the sailor toward his friend and watched him hesitate.“What’s stopping you,” he asked, “from going after what you really want?”)

Gloved fingers tighten around a scrap of paper.

(And with the young man’s answer, a wave of cold fear surged in Crowley, threatening to squeeze the air from his salt-stained lungs.“They would kill him.His father, and others here.They would find out, and they would show no mercy.They don’t understand.”The life had vanished from his voice; he spoke without emotion, without doubt.

Across the room, Alexandre downed the rest of his pint and slammed his glass onto the bar with a laugh, and the sailor watched, hands clenched tight.Crowley’s mind pinged between possible responses. _You can’t know that.You could keep it secret.Maybe they’d never find out.You could skip town, settle down somewhere better.You could protect him.It would be worth it.Love always wins in the end._ All lies.And that had never stopped him before, but it did this time.)

“Look, I’ve been thinking,” he forces out.

(“Good luck with your job, my friend.Good night.”With a nod to Alexandre, the sailor left the pub.Slumping down into his chair, resigned, Crowley let him leave.He finished his drink.He told himself it was worth it, whatever wrath he had to endure, in order to leave this tortured man alone.He was guarding something precious, and Crowley would not interfere. 

Later, as he strode away from the pub, hoping for one night’s rest before he had to explain his failure, he heard something: beneath the sounds of the rolling sea in the distance, hushed and desperate voices.

“Do you love her?”

“You know I don’t.How can you ask me that?”

The two figures stood huddled together against the side of a building.“Then call it off, and let me…I’m ready to…”The wind swallowed Alexandre’s words, but Crowley had heard enough.)

“You are fallen,” Aziraphale reminds him, and Crowley responds as expected, dutifully following the script.He is, after all, the one who asked Aziraphale to forget they could ever break from it.The one who forced them back to rehearsed lines.

(Alexandre’s father had also been a sailor in his prime.One last trip to a distant shore would give them the time they needed to flee or prepare to fight.With a snap, the job wrote itself on the shipping company’s books and the desire sparked to life in the father’s head.Not a fix, no, but a temporary reprieve.Now, they had a chance, at least, if they wished to take it.It might be enough.

Crowley stuffed his cold hands into the pockets of his overcoat and wandered until the town’s lights disappeared and he was left alone with the vast expanse of the sea.Each wave’s receding hush brought an insufferable, insistent silence that tugged thoughts from his subconscious. _That could be us._ His footsteps fell in rhythm with the echoes in his head, _could be us, could be us._

_If we faced destruction.If I risked losing him._ Overwhelmed, Crowley forced himself to stand still, to take a few breaths that matched the water’s ebb and flow.It would steal more, he knew, than what they could bring themselves to offer up, and their threat couldn’t be held back by a wish and a gesture.If they were discovered, salvation would require something unthinkable.

Some battered, shameless thing in him started thinking anyway.By the time the sun began to bleed its colors across the foamy peaks of waves, he knew what he needed.)

“I need a favor.”

He is refused, as if he is a child who doesn’t know any better, needs protecting from himself.As if he hasn’t thought it through.As if he, the demon who led Eve to the forbidden fruit, does not deserve to be trusted.As if he would lie to Aziraphale.

As if the danger is all in his head.

* * *

It is 1915, and the world is at war.

Aziraphale faces it alone.He has no choice, doesn’t deserve one.He endures it all in silence: the horrifying headlines, the curfews and ration orders, the riots.He watches from behind glass as paranoia eats his city alive, picks its brittle bones clean. 

One day, the nice woman who runs the bakery across the street receives a telegram.From the safe distance of the bookshop, he sees her collapse onto the pavement, sobbing.Broken.His heart aches for her, but he does not move.A good angel, he thinks, would rush to her side, say just what she needs to hear to carry on, lift her back onto her feet.Surely, with all of the celestial power that hovers just underneath his skin, he could fix this for her – but he simply watches.He is not allowed to raise the dead.Anything less than that, he knows, is not enough.

He writes a letter.Not another one to Crowley, this time.He’s written enough of those already, kept writing even after he realized he would never earn a response, after he crossed all boundaries of privacy and let himself in and discovered Crowley had been asleep for years.This letter has no address.After the wax seal dries, he lifts it up into the air and it disappears.He spends the rest of the night staring at a page, hardly reading a word, wondering what divine purpose could lie behind a widow’s lonely weeping.

He receives an answer.The golden envelope sits, waiting for him, on his desk the next afternoon.In tight, elegant writing, it tells him “no direct interference in this conflict is recommended.”That those above him believe “it is best to allow the human dispute to run its course” and that “there will always be casualties in any battle.It is expected.It is war.”In conclusion, he is reminded that his “job is to guide souls back to the righteous path of light when they have lost their way.”In order for that to happen, they must first become lost.

That’s it, then.He gives up his wild notions of helping at the front or aiding negotiations and settles in.He waits.He tells himself he should have known better than to even ask.He loses track of time, the days stretching together in slow drifts of dust across sunbeams.He does not allow himself to think about _expected casualties_ or the headlines that sit, unread, in the stack of papers by the door, or permanent loss, or the question he swears he heard in Crowley’s _unless_.He fought in a war, once.He has witnessed many.He needs no more memories of battlefields or the horrors left on them when the losing side retreats.

But when the whole world is at war, he learns, you cannot hide from the front.No matter how quietly you lock yourself away, it finds you.One night, after dark, terrible thunder erupts not too far from his shop, though the night sky is clear and dry.Up and down the road, people poke their heads out of windows or spill out onto the street.Dressed for bed, they stare up in wonder at the object floating in the heavens.Aziraphale can see what they cannot: a monstrous craft that, before tonight, only existed in the pages of science fiction books.His lips part and he begins a word of warning and then the next bomb hits, obliterating his voice.

When the rumbling wave of sound retreats, he yells, “take shelter!Inside, close to the ground!Hurry now!”He doesn’t linger to watch the small human figures scramble back inside their buildings.Amid the chaos, he disappears.

A second later, he is on the balcony of Crowley’s flat, gently laying a hand on the window pane. “Crowley,” he asks in a voice as fragile as the glass quivering beneath his palm, “are you there?Are you awake?”

A peek over his shoulder confirms that the zeppelin is close.“I - If I’m not needed, simply say so and I will go, but - you are a rather sound sleeper and - it appears we are under attack.”

No answer comes, so he turns his back on the door and grips the railing, summoning power and channeling it into the foundations of the building. _Just a minor act, really,_ he reasons with himself. _It can keep its course.No one should notice if it misses this particular spot._ He stands there for what feels like days, following the airship’s sickly slide through the night sky and listening numbly to the cries that build with each explosion. _It is expected.It is war._

At some point, its dread hull empty, the zeppelin changes course and heads back to its creator.Aziraphale lets go.He sways on his feet, utterly drained, and sinks to the cold ground, his back to the door.Behind him, lost in mute darkness, Crowley sleeps.In front of him, London shudders.

Amid this death-soaked chaos, what good is he?Where is the _path of light_ on a night blackened by the smoke that rises from the craters where homes, schools, offices, and churches stood yesterday?How could he be of any real service, now, working within Heaven’s guidance?And how is _this_ expected: the mindless obliteration of innocent civilians, hours away from where the papers claim the front lies?

Questions burn in him like coal, red-embered and scalding.He thinks of his stagnant days spent turning a blind eye, and the piles of newspapers, headlines ignored.While they offer little warning, refusing to read their stories of war does nothing to shield you, either.Why live a life of quiet suppression, of mild-mannered obedience, if it ultimately does not guarantee protection?What good is maintaining peace if war can force itself upon you anyway?

“We’re safe,” he whispers.His pale lips press together, holding the questions back.“For now.”

* * *

It is 1920, and the world is blurry at the edges.

Stiff and sluggish, cotton-mouthed, Crowley returns, slowly, to the world.

Waiting for him by the door is a too-neat stack of envelopes.

He reads their contents as he hobbles from room to room, joints creaking, reminding his limbs how to hold him upright against gravity.Obliterating thick layers of dust with waves of his hands.Opening curtains a bit more each time he passes them until his eyes have readjusted to the sun.He doesn’t exactly know what brought him back up from the deep, but these letters and the stories in them - Aziraphale’s instant regret, then shame, then desperation; a break in the timeline, silent decades; panic, London under attack, a world war and a treaty - keep him afloat, treading between rooms, awake.

_“I don’t need you.”_

_“The feeling is mutual.”_

Setting the final letter down on the pile of torn envelopes and yellowed paper, he clears his rusted throat. “Obviously.” _Wrong.We were both.So wrong._

After that day in the park, he had collapsed, astonished that Aziraphale had no interest in stockpiling defenses and, instead, had assumed he’d chosen to quit.As if he’d rather cease to exist than experience one more polite dinner, one more fleeting brush of hands, one more careful, brief smile.He found himself shipwrecked, clinging to the jagged pieces of his hope and fighting to keep his head above water.It did not take him long to choose the darkness beneath his tired legs.To sink into slumber.

But while he slept, Aziraphale had been searching for him from the surface, weaving ink-black nets and tossing them blindly into the depths. _“Forgive me,”_ one letter begged. _“I find myself missing you more than I care to admit even to myself,”_ another confessed. _“I knew it then, when you asked for what I cannot give, and I know it all the more now; I simply could not lose you.”_

With a breath that sputters and catches in his lungs, he approaches the mirror on the wall.He has no idea what’s in fashion this century, but he knows it can’t be the disaster he sees looking back at him.He turns the tangled mess of hair into a simple, sleek knot and brings a tiny bit of color back into his sickly-looking skin.He takes another deep breath, and it comes smoother, this time.He looks rested, he supposes.Restored.Ready to journey on.

* * *

It is 1941, and the world is on the brink of destruction.Another world war.Another period of sacrifice and suffering.History repeating itself, recycling headlines Aziraphale still remembers from what they had called, decades earlier, “the war to end all wars.”

This time, he does not let himself hide.He volunteers where he can, clearly too old for the draft and eagerly welcomed by the largely-female groups who are tending to those in need on the home front.Rumors of resistance circulate in the hospital wards and air-raid shelters, and he slowly accumulates names and trust and more names, hoping to someday disarm a bomb instead of sweeping up the aftermath of impact.He is careful to avoid miracles. 

One day, he hears a name that stuns him: Mr. Crowley.The next afternoon, he realizes he missed his shift at the hospital, too lost in thought to notice the time.Of course, he knew Crowley had awoken.He kept a watchful eye on his living quarters, after all.It had been over twenty years, and nothing: not a visit, not even a letter in response to all of his.Aziraphale had given up.Now, he hears his name in the whispers of resistance members, a powerful, mysterious figure not to be crossed.For days, he wrestles with the thought of Crowley sauntering his way into such a deadly game and wonders whose side he would really be on when the chips fell.

_Does he know what the other side would do to him if he were captured?Does he know how many humans could lose their lives if he slips up?Even so, contacting him is out of the question._ And Aziraphale has a job, finally, to prepare for.A way to do some real good, like the clever men in spy novels.He starts gathering the books.

Hours later, walls of silence and of stone lie in ruins around him.Again, London is alive with flame and horror, but they still stand, Crowley cleaning his dark lenses as Aziraphale takes in the sight of him after so very many years. _He saved me,_ he thinks simply, _after everything I said…_ “That was very kind of you.”

“Shut up,” but he doesn’t mean it, and as the corner of his mouth tugs upward, Aziraphale feels the warm relief of a sunrise after days of ship-rocking storms.

When he remembers about the books, he’s hit by that rush of dread that comes with permanent loss, the failure of not being cautious enough to protect something of value.He has learned to be so careful with what matters: his books, his clothes, his records, even Crowley - especially Crowley, since that night he asked him to forget for both their safety.Still, he is clumsy.Careless.He slips up and things, and people, topple overboard and are lost forever because of–

Crowley is holding something out to him.Instinctively, he reaches to accept it, then realizes what it is: his books.Resurrected.Safe.His precious human stories, rare and loved and unimportant to anyone but him, unharmed.For a moment, he forgets to breathe, but his starving heart pounds loudly in his chest, fighting to keep itself alive. 

Watching Crowley’s back slowly be absorbed by shadows, sirens echoing in his ears, he gives in to it, draws air into his lungs and accepts this fact that shakes the stone beneath his feet upon its impact. _I love him.Now.Still.Somehow.Against my will, and his.I truly love him._ Another force he cannot hide from, cannot keep at bay by pretending not to see it.Terrified, tripping over singed fragments of faith, Aziraphale follows in his wake.

* * *

It is 1967, and the world is growing more dangerous each day.

They sit in the shelter of the Bentley, voices low, faces obscured by the rosy spread of neon on the windows.

(Twenty-six years, it took him, to get to this point, and he still could not face it fully.He paced the bookshop, turning and turning his ring, letting himself be distracted by out-of-place books or interesting passersby.He did not want to do this.He knew better.Some of the first stories cautioned you about the rewards of challenging divinity: lungfuls of ocean, decades of solitude, incalculable loss.He also knew he had no other choice.

He could count on one hand the number of times they had seen each other since that night at the church, but each time, he knew he was giving himself away - in a glance, a laugh, a word spoken too fondly or too fast.Embers he thought he had extinguished had just been dormant, and now he was failing to control the reborn flames.It had to be obvious, and not just to Crowley.To anyone paying attention.

He stopped, set his shoulders, and approached the empty vessel on the table. _Avoidance.Silence.They are not defenses.This is._ )

Bare fingers curl around a tartan thermos.

(As he watched the tap water flow, he reminded himself how right Crowley had been, all along: they were not safe.)

“After everything you said.”A nod.

(It had taken a year for the miracle he cast in the church to catch up with him.Thankfully, the shop had been empty when Michael had called.“The auditors caught a discrepancy in the reports from last year, one of yours.I told them I would follow up.The report, as you wrote it, reads…”

Pulling his glasses off, he swallowed, his chest tight with nerves.He waited for the inevitable question.

“…but our records indicate enough energy was used to protect two corporations.Yours, and…?”

“The priest.Of the church.Did I not…”He laughed nervously.“I must have forgotten to mention him.I was - I knew the church was to be destroyed, so I, um - I wouldn’t interfere on a larger scale, naturally, but I thought, since the humans depend on their spiritual leaders for… for guidance in times like these, he would be worth saving, so I–“

“A priest.Right.”The flatness of Michael’s voice had made it difficult to tell if he had been convincing enough or not.“I will amend the report to reflect that detail.”

“Yes.”Empty air.“Thank you,” he added.“And my apologies for the error.”

“Expect the corrections form soon.It will need your signature.In triplicate.”

“Of course.”

A click, and he let out a breath, steadying himself on the table in front of him.They had never, to his knowledge, checked the accuracy of his reports that thoroughly before.Something was changing, and he knew his lies could only carry them so far.)

“Should I say thank you?”

“Better not.”

(Aziraphale held a hand over the water in the thermos.Nothing in him wanted to fight.Couldn’t he simply have him, in all the ways he needed, and continue with the work he did on Earth, too?Was loving him openly such an unforgivable sin?

If only they could speak without the chance of others hearing.Each of them had spent far too long drifting the open ocean, alone, searching for a safe place to land.He knew there would be a time for confessions, a time for finally coming home, but if they were not careful, they would founder before reaching solid ground.

In the meantime, they needed what all lost sailors in stories need: patience.Restraint.Caution.Defenses, just in case the fight was brought to them first.He shut his eyes and spoke the holy blessing, forcing out the words he had hoped never to say.)

“You go too fast for me, Crowley.”

_Give me time._ Once back in the rippling candlelight of the bookshop, he holds a hand to his chest, feels his stubborn, sea-tossed heart still beating as tears flood his vision. _Go slowly.But don’t stop._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You are a lovely, patient reader! I know this last chapter took far too long, and I'm very sorry for that. Thank you for reading! Just one chapter left to go, I think, and I promise it won't be months and months before it's posted.  
> Kudos and comments keep me going, and please follow me on Tumblr as [thetunewillcome](https://thetunewillcome.tumblr.com/) for updates, other fics, and more _Good Omens_ love.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! If you enjoyed this chapter, please leave a kudos and/or comment and let me know! I look forward to sharing the next chapter with you soon. If you'd like updates and more celestial love, follow me on Tumblr as [thetunewillcome](https://thetunewillcome.tumblr.com/).


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